---
title: Reserving a marketing budget and choosing the first channel
slug: app-marketing-budget-and-first-channel
summary: Why new apps fail without an earmarked marketing budget, and Steve P. Young's default first channels (ASO + Apple Ads), with the warning that viral social views often don't convert to downloads.
domain: mobile-apps
tags: [product-strategy, marketing-budget, distribution, channel-strategy, common-mistakes]
related: [app-growth-stages-organic-to-paid, app-development-cost-and-tooling-2026, high-rpi-app-categories, aso-as-acquisition-channel, apple-ads-as-first-paid-channel]
sources: [yt:SHctL0V73BE, yt:q3JuNLUKL1U, yt:2jH64ziB7uM]
updated: 2026-10-23
---

# Reserving a marketing budget and choosing the first channel

## TL;DR
- Mistake #7: spending everything on development — without marketing you own "a very expensive piece of software for yourself".[^1]
- **Earmark part of the budget for marketing** before building; AI-cheap development makes this easier.[^2]
- **Distribution first:** if Steve can't get distribution, he doesn't invest in building the app further.[^3]
- Don't know marketing? Start with **ASO + Apple Ads** — best ROI and easiest to set up.[^3][^4]
- Know social? Start there — but viral views don't guarantee installs (one founder: **2M views → ~20 downloads**).[^3]
- You need only **one or two channels** — Steve has seen apps reach $5M MRR on one or two.[^5]

## Details
**Budget logic (Jaime, B7 Dev, May 2026).** The best tech, design and development fail if nobody knows the app exists; he claims good marketing is "like 90% of success", having seen weaker products win on marketing.[^1][^2]

**Channel choice (Steve).** ASO (organic keyword rankings) and Apple Ads are pull channels where people already search, so they convert well and need little budget.[^3][^6] Social virality is high-variance: for every "7M views, 1M downloads" story he hears from people with millions of views and a handful of installs.[^3]

**Sizing a paid test (Meta, Oct 2026).** $1,000 at ~$2 CPI ≈ 500 installs; at a 7% trial rate that's only ~35 trials — below the ~50 weekly events Meta needs to optimise. Know these numbers before committing budget.[^7]

**Sequence:** validate with ASO/Apple Ads → confirm conversion → scale on Meta ([[aso-as-acquisition-channel]]).[^6]

## Disagreements / caveats
- Both speakers sell services (marketing vs development) and cross-refer to each other.
- "90% of success" is a rhetorical estimate, not a measured figure.[^2]
- Categories without search demand (e.g. a new social network) can't start with ASO/ASA.[^8]

## See also
- [[app-growth-stages-organic-to-paid]] — when to add paid
- [[high-rpi-app-categories]] — whether paid can ever pay back

[^1]: yt:SHctL0V73BE @ 18:05 — Jaime (B7 Dev)
[^2]: yt:SHctL0V73BE @ 19:11 — Jaime (B7 Dev)
[^3]: yt:SHctL0V73BE @ 19:11 — Steve P. Young
[^4]: yt:SHctL0V73BE @ 20:43 — Steve P. Young
[^5]: yt:q3JuNLUKL1U @ 01:09 — Steve P. Young
[^6]: yt:2jH64ziB7uM @ 05:48 — Steve P. Young
[^7]: yt:2jH64ziB7uM @ 17:00 — Steve P. Young
[^8]: yt:2jH64ziB7uM @ 06:37 — Steve P. Young